It would be easy to blame it on injury - the class of Johncock, Otten, Porplyzia and Knights, to name a few, is irreplaceable. Vince, McLeod, van Berlo, Thompson and Bock all played but they clearly lacked match hardness.
But it’s not just about injury. Presumably the Crows’ preseason had such a high attrition rate because of the intensity of training, so you would expect that those men still standing would be playing at a higher level - they weren’t. You would expect their tackling to be ferocious - it wasn’t. You would expect their kicks to hit targets - they rarely did.
On Sunday night, Pavlich, playing as an over-sized midfielder, waltzed past gaggles of Crows as if they were perched on a wire. A Freo forward (I don’t know who it was, and who cares anyway?) easily beat a half-hearted grab by a Crows defender and jogged in for a lazy goal. Sandilands, the human pylon, was the conduit for almost every surge forward, and no Crow seemed capable of beating him or even making him sweat. Barlow, the come-from-nowhere rookie, made his more-experienced opponents look like they had nowhere to go.
It wasn’t easy to watch.
There were a few positives: Petrenko has improved, as has Cook (although he still needs to work on his kicking); both of them have dash. Walker had a good game, taking contested marks and trying hard to put pressure on Fremantle when they had the ball. Dangerfield was one of our best, and both Sloane and Armstrong had a fair-dinkum go. But these were dim lights on a gloomy night.
Just seven months ago the Crows made the Dockers look foolish, but now the tables have turned. The obvious conclusion is that the Dockers have improved - considerably - and the Crows have regressed. After last year’s promising tilt at the premiership, we hoped for more from the boys. Do we need to downgrade our expectations?
No - it’s too early to do that. Neil Craig says he knows the group is capable of much better football and refuses to let go of his top-four dream. I admire his steadfastness.
He might be proved right. Last year the campaign looked disastrous until things started to click; perhaps something similar will happen this year. As the wounded and underdone heal and get more game time the Crows should get better, and all the plans that presumably have been laid can be put into effect.
In the meantime, survivors of the disaster - Crows’ supporters everywhere - can only pick through the ruins and hope for better days. The preseason went bung; a test of the team’s mettle will be how it claws its way back into contention.
